[f. SPIRE sb.3] intr. To curl, twist or wind spirally; to make a spiral curve; esp. to mount or soar with spiral movement.
Sometimes difficult to distinguish from SPIRE v.1
1607. Topsell, Four-f. Beasts, 54. The hornes [of the Bonasus] are recurued, and bending backward, so that they do not spire directly downeward but rather forward.
1718. Entertainer, No. 41. 280. It is a Pitchy-smoak, and wheresoever it curls and spires, there we may … find the … Fire of Virtue.
1824. Miss L. M. Hawkins, Annaline, II. 232. The whirlwind came spiring upwards.
a. 1850. Beddoes, Poems (1851), 214. The amazèd circle of scared eagles Spire to the clouds.
1895. Yeats, Poems, 225. The worms that spired about his bones.
Spire, obs. form of SPEER v.1
